


Edge of the Crevice

by Gjak



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Dark, Denial of Feelings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Manhandling, Non-Consensual Violence, Possessive Behavior, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Slow Build, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:35:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7515349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gjak/pseuds/Gjak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A disastrous outcome of a failed heist leaves Junkrat kidnapped for his secret in the omnium and Roadhog desperately searching for his missing Rat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where the Rat goes

**Author's Note:**

> Additional tags will be added with progression.  
> I've been kind of sober at 4am in the morning when I wrote this, I'm sorry for any grammatical mistakes. Do be warned for mature content, I'm going to be editing this work and tags as I write my chapters.
> 
> Thank you for giving this a read, I appreciate you.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> *Notes added and edited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_I push you down, down, closer to the edge._

_And we stayed there, until the last push_

_We go_

_Down_

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

You are bleeding. I am bleeding. _I, am bleeding_. Yes, he certainly is.

 _Well fuck, jolly confusing it is_ , he thinks. It is most disturbing how much it was starting to hurt. It hurts enough to jostle him out of the blackness that he realised was his eyelids. Rat, get yourself together, the voice spurts in terror.

His voice is inaudible, probably because it was inside his head. Much of a shit comfort that was, he was bleeding all over his skin, spilling out whatever it was that was left inside his scrawny hides onto the dirt cracked floor.  All he had for comfort was himself talking to nothing.

Bones are cracking against something hard. As someone said a long time ago, _Fawkes, you dumb little whacker cracker, that mouth of yours will get you murdered bloody someday_. So was he going to die here?

 

_Fucking ratbag, hope he’s worth the trouble._

Someone kicked him, so that was a possibility. But how curious, he thinks, he has not yet jabbered off about anything. What was it? What did he tatter this time? Was it the crown? Was it that worthless piece of shit they hooked off from the East Coast? Did the suits in Perth snitch about the big glittering scrap? Or was it…

 

No, holy-o Jesus Christo. Junkrat had to stop thinking. It was starting to hurt too much.

Dust was getting inside his lungs from grovelling on the floor, one of his broken bones were making sure his tapered thinking was getting the point about pain. It was unusual to feel this much pain, either the Rat was in serious trouble that was endangering his life, or he was hallucinating again. It was likely the earlier since one of his gold teeth was rolling around on the floor like an abandoned piece of sun raisin cookie.

He’s not used to the sight of shiny boots. And he hates them with passion. Worse than talking junks are the people who think those talking piece of garbage scraps are equal to men. How damn obnoxiously unreal. Mankind has sunken so low that even Junkrat is feeling sympathetic for them.

 _Oh this was the apocalypse_ , he mumbles, biting his bloodied lips and stinging gums.

But they are all around, those shiny boots. It is infuriating how they are standing over him, casting unwanted shadows. He would very much like to tell them to fuck off, the hands that are mauling at his machine arm, the gruff snide remarks they make. Rough, treating him like shit. They don’t care if he’s ripped a hole in his rib. They don’t care if the good arm they grabbed to cuff was all purple and red, ugly shades of abuse.

But his vocal chords aren’t working right. They’ve gone completely off the rocker with who knows what shit that he got himself into. He doesn’t remember a thing about what happened only nine minutes ago, and god forgive if this was the worst time to panic, but he couldn’t see a fucking trace of a single silver hair from the presence Junkrat was desperately trying to capture in his eyes.

 

And he was nowhere to be seen.

 

Rat was starting to panic now. A choke he lets out from the broken neck, a broken chorus of wind blowing through his pipes rattle into hoarse noises. He tries to shout, he tries really hard. He can’t see with his vision all blurry. No, he won’t see. He needs to feel. But it’s not there.

 _Roadie._ Rat gasps. But it’s not there. It just isn’t.

 

He’s not there.

 

 

_Roadie, Roadie, Roadie._

 

 

He was not there.

Roadhog was not there.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There were few words he remembered from a very long time ago. Like fables, bedtime stories, they appeared in his dreams sometimes. They don’t appear anymore.

 _E tū Mako_. _E tū._

 

 

What a strange name to be calling him. It didn’t feel like his. It felt too much like a stranger’s name to be strangling him so hard. Hog sat up like a wild thing, his bulging sides ignoring the bruises straining his body.

The jagged clattering of chains kept him back from losing his thoughts trailing off again, he coughed up whatever thing that was blocking his throat through the cracks of his dislocated mask.

It was advantageous to have his adorned mask off near his mouth, something foul black was spat out from the back of his throat and he couldn’t care less about how it got there. It was probably the bomb. That fucking bomb, Roadhog curses silently, swiping off the iron tasting saliva off his chin with his bruised arms. And it wasn’t the bombs he was used to seeing.

 

The giant man sees the desolate waste of whatever there was before the bomb sat off. He had no time to recollect his memories, something felt wrong and unadjusted. Something felt so missing and alone that he just had to shut down his mind and poke through the dead bodies and scraps like a crow that lost his shiny little coin.

 The masked man picked up his hooks and chains to poke through everything he could, silently but efficiently. He searched, he rummaged, he ransacked until the sad little sun decided to drop down dead.

 

But it was not there. It just wasn’t.

He halts. In a cold dead stop. And then he lets his body fall down. He sits there blank.

 

The sun feels so long and cold today.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Never trust a suit. Tall poppies fucks up everything the people down under try to stack high. It’s a war. It was the very reason why there was a civil war. They think people are resources, Hog knows how their brain work. It’s a story once again, of a long time ago. That story belonged to a man he knew once, a man with a meaningful name.

It doesn’t do anything to make him feel though, when he bashes the old man’s skull against the onyx desk, the hard rattle of the violence causes a few diamonds to tumble down onto the checker tiled floor. It splatters blood and screams along with the tetra edged jewels, it makes the man whimper for his life.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, I had no idea, I swear!”

Suits love to hold their Christ’s name in vain. He wondered if people still believed that shit in this godforsaken land. Hog was sure whatever holiness there was, it left the outback a long time ago when he decided to hit the road with those damned beings of shitload logic in the Iris.

“Wrong answer.” Rumbled the giant man, and his victim becomes a shade paler when the blood crusted hook is pushed up against his neck. “Wrong map.”

 

“Map? There was no map!”

“There was.”

 

Yes there was, just before they took the job from old piker. With the red nut in the outback with his goonies with the hard-light tech, and what a load full of dills and wankers they were.

He told them that there were going to be diamonds, thousands of them after they finished the heist inside warehouse. But the map, the map he gave them was no map inside the security sector.

 

It takes a moment for the pudgy balding man to realize what the deal was. The thoughtfulness of his expression clearly was oblivious to what Hog’s infuriated rumbles were about, but after a while he comes to a simple conclusion; “That wasn’t a map, it was a floor plan.”

This greatly puzzles Roadhog.

 

“Those motherless hoons in the Vishkar Corporation didn’t give us a map. The diamonds were an incentive. The floorplan was for what the Rat demanded from us. We had a deal.”

“Deal?” The bigger man interrupts, hands threatening to crush whatever was squeezed inside its enclosure. A soft squeal threatened to burst from the smaller old man, his suit all crumpled and drenched with his own scarlet acid.

“I heard no deal of this.”

 

“You wouldn’t know,” The baldie grunts, frustrated between the pains of being held against his tolerance.

“The kid made sure you remained out of the equation.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It felt like a bomb.

A different kind of bomb than what he was used to the other work on. A real bomb. The ones when they detonate, they take down generations. It reminded him of something, from a long time ago. Again, with those ‘long time ago’.

It feels strange to know how just a few words can rock everything off the peaceful reality of guts and goring. The explosion was shattering. Everything inside the warehouse was made sure it was blown apart. The poor slackers shattered to smithereens, Hog picked out the rest of his bleeding eardrums before driving furiously off into the highway.

 

Uneasy rattles echoed from the back of his titan bike, some belonged to him, some belonged to the other. It made the absence that much clear when there was no yabbering that followed those unsettling noises.

Hog couldn’t care. He couldn’t give a fuck. The last time his emotions felt so unstable was before Roadhog met Junkrat, before everything else became a bunch of stacked waste.

 _Oi mate._ And fuck, he can almost hear him talk, at the backseat, holding onto the straps of his backside. _Don’t feel so bad and stop making a duck face you beaky lard ass. Not the first time I do somethin’ crap. All right, she’ll be. I’s all okie dokie._

 

Hog grunts angrily. Such surge of confusion was not good for his temperament. It was not at all okie dokie, it felt dorky fucky at the least if he had to feel.

It was all a mistake. A big load of mistakes to start thinking mutual trust was there. Since when? It made the pig man wonder, since when did he start taking the trust for granted? That wasn’t supposed to happen. He let his guard down, to a fucking junker for the price of  just his name that he spewed out onto his mind with that half assed smile.

 

Another side of him starts arguing. It was probably that guy he thought was dead ‘a long time ago’. The kid is allowed to keep his own secrets. You’ve got your own. You don’t tell him everything you know, like the day when you died. Why do you think that his thoughts belong to you?

Hog is tempted to shut his foot down onto the brakes and drive a bullet through his own skull.

I am being childish. And yes, right you are. Hog hated snide remarks, but had no comeback from that part of the voice’s logic. And you are feeling guilty. Hog nods. Because you weren’t fast enough.

And crash. There goes the foot on his brakes. The vehicle screeches like a cold blooded monster as it snags the sand into its tyres. It stops with the dust bellowing like the storm, and through the curtains of its thickness, Roadhog stares like a dead man walking.

 

Hog heard all of it. Through the explosion, and through the crumbling walls, after everything went down the sink hole. His arms and hands twice larger than the scrawny little idiot trying to pull him close out of the fire without having to tear off his remaining arm.

His hearing was too busy bleeding. Light was scorching at his skin. He felt nothing when the bullets start flying, only when his body goes down does he start clawing hard against the surface of his ground.

 

_Roadie!_

 

 

He would want to grunt in reply. He was tempted to uncharacteristically scream. Let him know he was still there. Let Junkrat know he was coming. Let him know he ain’t dead yet. Let him know to stay there, right where he was. Don’t go wandering off anywhere he couldn’t reach. Stay, out of trouble, don’t mess everything up.

 

But the Hog was busy.

 

_Mako._

 

 

 

 

Being a damn failure at what he was hired to do.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 There are a lot of insecurities about being insane.  Firstly you never get your own name right. It takes until Christmas to figure out which letter your surname starts with. It was a simple exercise at first, when he first picked through the grave of Omnium, Jamison claimed that it would help with remembering who you are, why you lived, how you could be so desperate.

 

So he starts singing the ABC’s, lines up every single syllable that starts with J and F. He repeats them with caution, sometimes gets stuck between J.F Kennedy and Jonathan Fox. Until he finally finds Jamison Fawkes skiting off in the corner about what a genius he was, he didn’t lose him the second time. Rat’s not amused.

There was little else the caged rat could do to not lose his mind, being cramped inside a cold metal box, let out by the steel collar around his neck like an animal waiting to be butchered.

 

There were a lot of arms with grips like talons, they didn’t mind him cursing down a thunder when the fingers clasped on his broken bones and dislocated joints. He was dunked through hard cold water, and by the time he was gasping for air at the surface and giving off fountains of nose bleeds, they were disinfecting him with all kinds of unpleasantness they had to offer.

The procedure was degrading to a point of Junkrat feeling worse by the time he was let out in his own little holding cell all painted in ugly gross white.

The hard part was losing his arm. And then the legs. Times like this he wished he at least had a good leg, every signal in his nerves were telling him to scurry off, get through the cracks and run like a crazed little rat away from the place.

 

But no, the collar was humiliating enough. They chained his useless leg by the ankles through the cement wall, like a mongrel up on the chopping block. He spluttered through his bloody nose, _Arseholes,_ while cleaning off the filthy red fluid flowing down on his face with the back of his hands.

His wet blonde hair was sagging wildly down on his face. It was hard to see who kicked him awake back into reality, but his face starts to hurt again like an incinerated matchstick. But there were feet. There were always the feet that he could tell was not from his side of the world.

He hates shiny boots, but he hated the metallic gear more than the other.

 

“ _What the fuck!_ You bloody wankers!” Junkrat bursts, his panic allowing him to scurry backwards even if he has only one of the two pairs of arms and legs he had. A few expressionless androids stare blankly at him, before allowing access to the suited men to walk into the sight. The room is only dimly lit; the atmosphere is a pure form of hatred for the rat cowering against his will.

“Mate, don’t be a goddamn sicko, stop invitin’ those moving junks into me party.”

 

The tall man with the brunette moustache raises an eyebrow at the aged youngster, ignoring the profanity in his language.

“They are not Omnics. I know you know.” He states, cold and demeaning.

And sure as seven doomed hells, Junkrat hates him immediately.

“Git buddy.” Rat snaps. “Find yourself a proper accent, ya twat, yer not from the outback.”

“I will make this as clear as day Mister Fawkes, first rule, no chitter chatter.”

 

Mister Fawkes would have liked to say something insulting and mildly offensive back in reply, but as soon as the sentence of his first posh rule was let out, the man on his right landed the tip of his hard starched boots right between his bruised rib cages. It hurts like needles, and Junkrat tries to convince himself that the pain is not going to kill him, so he doesn’t need to whimper like a fucking loser.

 

_Ow! Ow. Ow. Ow._

The repetition is like a plague. It’s intrusive in his nature and Junkrat finds little remorse in killing his own emotions. The lanky man stings daggers into his look, that wild amber eyes glowing sinister with each passing second of his agony surging through his body. The others seem nonchalant, standing over his squirming body like they own it.

 

It makes Junkrat sick.

 

“Second rule, answer everything in all honesty.”

“What is this? Pre-school? Stop sprouting poppycock you wandless cunt.”

And yes, there goes the second crack. Jamison goes forth in his own way to remark how hard the gold teeth were to get. His face fires up at the harsh slap, and it was infuriating to know that getting slapped like some worthless ten dollar skank was worse than getting his head cut off under the guillotine. The rage made him shut up in an angry silence.

“Where is the core?”

“What core?” The third strike against his stomach makes him whimper a little louder, before raging off in his hoarse croaks. “Oi, this ain’t fucking chitter chatter you headless fritter, how the fuck am I supposed to answer to anything without prologue and epilogue?” _Dumb fucks_ , the junker adds, finishing his sentence with a torn lip.

 

“The Omnium gave you a lot of answers everyone is looking for, Mister Fawkes. Even the remnants of Blackwatch are after your tail for that piece of gold you dug up from the grave.”

 

Blackwatch. Vishkar. Talon. It made no matter now that they all wanted the same thing. Even Overwatch has some defected secrets that they made sure was under the surface. That was why everyone just disbanded wasn’t it? Because secrets are not worth that much. Not that much at least.

“Mister Fawkes. We need the omnium core.”

“Core? Core eh? What core?”

 

Junkrat cackles hard. A chorus of anxious little giggles decorating the ends of his laughter. It echoes in his dry throat like an extensive defence mechanism.

“Second rule.” Came the reply.

 

 _It’s nice to have a warning_. Rat thinks. Especially before a particularly painful blow on somewhere where one would like to keep unbruised. Screaming bloody murder at the heels of the leather boots that stamped against his ankles, Junkrat wished his nerves would just stop feeling.

“We have all the time in the world, Jamison.” His abuser drawls. “There are more than many ways to break a man.”

“Creativity. Fantastic, I always knew ya had it in yeh. Now fuck off, and find me Roadie.”

 

This was going to be a slow burn. Everyone was going to enjoy the merry ride. Even the androids expressionless faces seemed happy to realize that this was going to be a fucking party. And with those imaginative thoughts, Junkrat avoided the man staring down at him with a scalding cold look on his face. He knew that face. He saw it before.

 

 

“Enjoy your time here.”

 

 

The man finishes.

 

 

 

And it sounds too much like a death sentence to be sweet.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Where the Hog goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roadhog alone on the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciated all the Kudos that people left, and the wonderful feedback commented on the work,  
> thank you.
> 
> Taking my time with exploring a little character and chemistry between these two, apologies for the slow build.

 

 

 

 

The first time Roadhog sees Junkrat, the kid was hiding under corpses.

 

 

It was the middle of January, the Outback was melting, it was blazing and boiling, and he was hiding under a ‘ _fucking pile of’_ dead bodies. There were flies all around. The scrawny fox finds him ripping apart a head.

There’s something about hearing the heart beat through a man’s blood. It pulses and drips along his fingers like someone drooling their organs all over his hand. It stinks, no less than the skinny lean kid he pulled out from underneath the skin of a dead woman with straw coloured hair. It was a crippled heap of filth, a little disgusting to keep his eyes on the sore sight.

The blood soaked man looks up with curiosity at the massive Hog with his chained fangs. Wide round eyes, reminded Roadhog of little gems that he saw one night near the tree made of hacked off fingers. Citrine, they called it. All gold and burnt. Worthless than Jade.

A lump of flesh and sticky bones with nothing remarkable, he thought. Though, his head was worth something. _I know you_. Hog mutters like a statement on a wall. _Ten thousand grands on something in your brain._

 

 _I saw ya kill._ The blonde answered, to a different question Hog did not ask.

 

_It was bloody perverted._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Don’t be a dick.”

 

And dicks don’t really talk. Roadhog muses in his head. He feels the soft tugs at his canvas rag, draped over his head. It’s still soaked with rain, but it would do at keeping him warm until the sun decides to shove back up.

“Mate, I’m serious.” Junkrat barks. “Me lights goin’ off. Sharing is caring, haven’t ya learned? Uneducated swine.”

Roadhog pulls a face under his mask. Someone was sure he graduated High school. Not a good one, but a decent one at best. But that was before the world ended, before Rutledge died.

They had a little pond near the school, the ones where the mean ones used to drown the lab rats in. Such cruel faces they wore. Had a little bet going on for the rat that managed to live the longest, and nobody rarely won anything because they always forgot rats could swim. It left the pond green, disgusting, and filled with filth.

 

Rats still drowned though, when the rain flooded the pond. Rocks became too slippery for them to step over and save themselves.

It became filthier.

 

“Fuck. Really, Hugo?” Junkrat grunts, making a sharp tug at the Hog’s canvas that snaps him out into reality. “Junkrat dying here of rain, if ya can’t see already.”

“Find your own.”

“Damn considerate of you friend, now bugger off and make room, Roddy-o.”

He doesn’t need permission. One doesn’t really care for the luxury of taking permissions anyway. The pig man decides to put up with the ball of tinder squeezing between his side, and nonchalantly shifts himself to let the other have room for his peg leg.

Junkrat scuffles in a hurry under the rags, brushing the wet hair off his forehead with a string of innovative words. It was wonderful in a shit way, how the kid managed to keep talking. Roadhog wasn’t sure if he wanted to stitch his mouth shut, or pat his head. A little of both perhaps.

 

“I hate the rain.”

They hear each other talk, one inside his head, the other by his voice.

 

Roadhog curiously stares up at the murk ridden sky.  
He wondered if it would stop at all. The raining, the colourlessness, and the freezing cold…

He watches. Silently transfixed at the droplets of water running down the scrawny man’s cheeks. Something about the way his bony shoulders tucked underneath their shared cloth. Hunched up like a little ball beside his giant arms. The bristling, darting eyes, amber gold, polluted nails, breakable fingers.

 

“Afraid you’ll drown?” Hog asks.

 

Junkrat answers with a snicker.

“Maybe.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It is unpleasant to wake up with a dream you know it happened.

 

Brings up useless memories, depressing ones, and it makes Roadhog throw up on the dirt ridden floor first thing in the morning. Everything is pale blue, and it goes horribly with the Outback.

The titan wipes his mouth clean before getting his mask back into place. Everything tastes like salt, even the air. It rained last night, heavy fall, unlikely of summer. The ground is left cracked and bullied, erasing trails and making Hog curse like a mad man.

Day six of driving into seemingly nowhere, Roadhog was nearing madness. You can smell rotten things, but not bad things. Bad things are clever, they know how to hide.

Consequently his search was now like fishing. He hooks one clue, gobbles it up. Then he will throw, throw, throw again until he finds something, anything. Roadhog ends up near the shoreline; he makes sure everyone in the operations facility is shredded.

They had a name, and it starts with a familiar letter, but Roadhog never paid much attention to details and was too quick at getting through answers.

It brings him closer to the East, somewhere he really didn’t want to get closer back again. Near to the roads riding up to the acropolis where it used to be the train tracks to Melbourne. He had a lot of bad memories about the place.

Never had good ones when he got nearer to the poppies.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It is hard to deal with the silence.

Roadhog tries to keep himself awake when the silence descends into his space. Feels too empty without meaningless words, and Junkrat was ever the champion of fucking up his serenity.

It feels too empty. And it scares him into thinking that he has gone deaf. And when you’re deaf, you start hearing things that has no wind in the background.

 

_What. Can’tcha go to sleep without some tucker in?_

Roadhog lets the voice snigger as much as he liked. Leaning his head sideways, he stares into the dark where the pale little idiot made weird hand gestures at him. He likes his games, careful not to cross the line. Always woke him up with a sudden blast and a boom of a wrong little experiment of his.

 

 _Would love to tuck ya in mate, would be me glorious honour honestly._ Hog blinks, tired and sleepy, resting his weight against the sleeping bike. _But the last time I tried, ya kinda killed me, so nah._

Hog tries to reason with himself that was a long time ago, the first time he saw the rat scribbled on a piece of paper worth less than his crap. Where he broke his leg with a fist, and Junkrat was trying to get used to having his body carried off like a ragdoll wrapped between the man’s heavy arms.

He can almost see him now. And fuck, he was going insane, Roadhog was sure. Hallucinating was next to depravity in his books, but he can’t deny the fact that he wasn’t turning his head around from the figure cackling softly near the dying bonfire.

 

Junkrat always looks the same to him. Memory is fickle though, it might be his minds playing tricks on him.

 

“You ain’t here. Fuck off, rat.” Hog grunts.

_Let me._

Hog receives no further answers. As said, memory is fickle. And anger replaces the curious panic inside his head once the voice becomes solid. He knew he was only talking to his own mind, but like a sick disease, he can’t get his thoughts off the other things that he was dying to ask the other man.

“Acting all trusty and shit.”

How fucking naïve. Roadhog wasn’t sure if he was applying that to himself or the other. It was infuriating to know that he was confusing himself.

“Keeping dumb secrets like they matter to me.”

_It does though. For you’s and I’s. Know what I’m saying eh?_

“Might as well ditch you here.” Hog grunts on. “Would be better off without each other.”

_Being so salty again mate, not well for ya. Piggyass havin’ a useless ding dong about me, says something about how much it matters._

 

It wreaks something in his guts. Like someone pulled a thing out from his insides with a fork.

Hog felt his eyelids droop when his tongue slouched too much to give an answer. His lucid hallucination silently scurries near beside his body. Roadhog allows it to stick itself under his arms before closing his eyes completely.

The pig man whispers himself to a difficult sleep.

 

 

“I don’t care.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Junkrat liked to paint. The kid was horrible at drawing actual pictures, but he seemed happy when he had a brush in his hands and something solid to work on. He had an affection of dull colours that seemed brass and boring to Roadhog, but still enjoyed watching him struggle with the paint staining his elbows.

He repainted the bike when June passed, the rain washed off the scalding steel after the heavy downfall. Black paint was easy to get on the dumps of the Outback. The bigger man sat down and watched the bony hands working efficiently at the vehicle frames.

Roadhog had a low opinion on the stupid smiles painted on Junkrat’s bombs, hand drawn just to add the glamour. He didn’t find them tasteful, but Junkrat was fulfilled by this bombing artwork of his. But the Hog acknowledged that his work on machinery was quite fine indeed, the work took around half a day and was finished drying after another.

The suggestion for painting a fanged hog on the rear was cut down faster than Junkrat could say “why”.

Roadhog grunts unapologetically as he sits down back on his freshly painted bike, waiting for the other to wriggle himself onto the backseat and wrap his arms around his side.

The warmth is burning in the cold of July. The last thing Hog remembers hearing is the wacky idiot grumbling his complaints in an encoding of misery.

 

 _I can wait._ He mutters playfully.

_Fuckin’ miss me when I’m really pushing daises ya big twat._

 

Roadhog replies almost automatically without thinking.

_Ain’t happening._

 

_Not going to let you die._

* * *

 

 

 

 

So why hasn’t he droven off alone yet?

Roadhog can’t answer.

When the sun sits up high again, he drives. Drives towards the direction where the blood trails lead to his missing traitor. The anger calms down after his hook goes through twelve bodies, but he still cannot fathom why he feels so neglected and uneasy without the burning presence under his arms.

He’s received his share of the spoils up until the last heist. Had more money to go off alone somewhere where he’s never been before. See things he wanted to see. Be a loner again like he always was without having to babysit a lanky little dingo.

The squeezing temptation of turning the other way was constantly there, ever since the doubt decided to move in along with the tattered blueprints and floorplans.

 

_Imagine me dead. Now that would be funny._

The voice yabbers, muffled by the wind. Hog feels the fingers playing at his sides and belt straps over his bloated hips, his backside covered with the body of another. He squeezes the accelerator harder, speeding up as the dirt screams against his face.

 

It’s terrible to know that he was worried goddamn sick it might be true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Strange little happenings of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Insanity is like a disease.  
> What you cannot remember are the things you'd rather forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *So I have been quite vague with the fic itself and due to the style of my writing there are some who gets confused with the work without a little side explanation... like my old beta. (I will be adding these notes to chapter 1 as well.)
> 
> [1] The story was originally centred on my study of the characters Roadhog and Junkrat that I was discussing with Tktz. The original plan for the entire fic was trying to write my take on how two psychopathic men can grow emotions for each other in their own twisted ways. So the chapters are often divided into blocks that relevantly skip from the present to the past, intentionally done so to create a memory block effect. The idea for writing this just randomly spurted when I was a little drunk late night and the manuscript kind of looks unreadable now, I am trying to edit the blocks so it flows understandably well. I am so grateful for the kind comments that noted the writing style.
> 
> [2] My opinion on the Overwatch background is that Blizzard intentionally had to tone down the seriousness of it due to it being a video game with an age 15 rating. The whole idea of a not-so-futuristic world (2060) in war with machines and radiation explosions is appealing to me because of how dark it actually sounds. So do be warned for mature and heavy content implied.
> 
> [3] I have not been writing fiction for a long time, this work is unbeta'd and I am still editing the work as I go, so much love for the Kudos that people leave and the comments. You guys are great, thanks for the patience with the update to people who kindly expressed they would read more.

 

 

 

 

 

We are back to square one, and it is hilarious.

 

 

At the least someone has to find it hilarious. Or else, Junkrat would have to think hard and long about his broken fingers. Always fingers first with people. Always joints, it was as if machines were deadly jealous of appendages that moved without creaking.

It was the least he could do – to find it hilarious – to distract his mind, when the orderlies return to break his fingers.

 

Again.

  
And again.  
And again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Somewhere in this world, a doctor would find herself guilty to death for the research of such hideous things as medicine of nanobiotic regeneration. He’d be sure to tell her, that technology was “top notch” and “peerless”.

Junkrat observed with fascination in the first days to come, in his lonesome white cell and a plastic bed, the regenerating process of his mangled and broken body. The only thing that didn’t come back to life after the beating was his missing canine tooth. The little Junker in pain spent most of his dreadful nights wondering how much it will cost to fill the space in his gums with gold.

 

He started naming the orderlies that came into his cell, and the most frequent ones with the routine were the big burly things with hard chiselled arms. Junkrat didn’t want to consider them as living things. They looked deader than alive. They hit harder than the old goons in Rider’s Avenue.

Repetition was still like the plague. Simple violence is actually terrifying, and they call it the ‘process.’ It starts off with his finger.

They break, heal, and repeat. Break, heal, and repeat.

 

Until Junkrat hears his own bones crunching with a sick beat like the clock ticking inside his ears. _Crunch. Crunch. Crunch_. There goes his finger. They hurt with a peculiar set rhythm, and it drives him insane. He always wishes the old man in his navy suit would shut up for this. He has a funny English accent and always shoves up in his meetings with the orderlies with a digital pad in his hands.

 

What is your name? _Crunch._  
When did you last visit the Omnium, Mister Jamison Fawkes? _Crunch._  
What were you doing there, Mister Jamison Fawkes? _Crunch._  
What did you find there, Mister Jamison Fawkes? _Crunch._  
Where are you hiding the program, Mister Jamison Fawkes? _Crunch._

You become sceptical when you hear someone scream.  
Junkrat reminded himself that it had been a long time since he whimpered out aloud, and it felt horrible, to be honest.

 

He absolutely hates it when the drugs kick in.  
And when they start burning, it burns like hell fire.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_He hates the damn sun burning his eyes._

 

Whoever invented the big bulb of light must be damn proud of their accomplishments; they were setting his mind on fire with ease. It will burn out cold soon. Junkrat wonders, his mind trailing off to somewhere far and beyond, sitting on the dirt with hands fiddling his empty tea bottle.

 

_Yer bleedin’ on me mate._

The nutter mutters. Roadhog grunts in loudly in reply. He seems unbothered. Hog was starting to stink. Junkrat looks distastefully at the open gash on the giant’s shoulders. It left its bleeding tongue out, gushing out the dark coloured acid onto his painted arms.

It smells like rotting fish, funny, the scrawny Junker snickers. _Reckoned you’d smell more like pork._ Roadhog doesn’t answer. He’s all too silent under his mask. The gash doesn’t look like it was going to close by itself, and there was something yucky about the way it looked and felt.

 

Like it hurts the Hog somehow.

 

 _Tough bastard, I’d be squealin’ like a pansy with somethin’ like that on me shoulder._ Junkrat remarks. And a long pause follows his voice.

The bigger man lets out an unrecognised string of gnarled words out his lips, and they sound oddly familiar to Junkrat who emptily blinks up at him.

The sun is too hot today. It was starting to dry his throat. Perhaps if he died a little early, the other won’t get another ugly gash on his shoulders for taking a knife for him. What a sad thought, Rat thinks.

 

He slowly retches at the salty blood he tastes, lips smothering against the boiling cut on the other’s fishy flesh.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Junkrat chokes on his own blood too easily. Pure displeasure, he states in his head, spitting out the bile and muck stuck in his throat. Everything becomes tedious after sometime, the white walls, the bloody bed sheets, and the needles. He hated procedures.

Something artistic about the way he could feel the holes burning on his skin, strapped onto a chair with a bulb flickering above his head. He feels his bruised skin churning under his muscles like they were diseased.

 

Cold, purple, bloodless and sometimes more dead than alive. Someone must be fucking enjoying this, he imagines things like spectating his own death. When they puncture holes into him, he’s more scared that his truth is written between his broken rib cages than the threatening pain. Because nobody really likes an easy answer and Junkrat hated obvious endings with passion.

 

 _What is your name?_ The man in his blue suit asks. Voice all casual like the fucker he was. Junkrat splutters his answer, gums all scarlet, and his gold teeth rotting inside his own fluid.

“Jamison Fawkes.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“What an uninteresting name.” The man hissed. “Sounds too English.”

Junkrat has a low opinion of other people’s preferences when it came to names. Never felt a real affection for what normal stuff called each other. He really could not care less. The slap on his face forces him to care.

It stings just enough for him to find discomfort.

 

“Oldie Jack has ten grands for ya neck, kid. Don’t know what’s so special bout’cha.”

The Rat replies in a pathetic fit of giggles, his neck still wrung with a lasso. The mare doesn’t mind having his neck tied up to her tail, and speeds up in a trot when the whip slashes at her hind. Junkrat struggles to keep up with the pace. When they make her gallop just for the enjoyment of it, the dusty Junker goes down with a yelp and ends up with a bruised knee.

 

“Careful ya wanking dipshits.” He ends up barking at the air, face all red. “Don’t want Jackie with a voiceless blondie, the fucker needs me sing song vocals to get his opal’s worth.” _Dumb fucks._ Junkrat add the salt, squinting madly at the head hunter who just shrugs it off with a grim look on his face.

The bearded man laughs cynically at the nonsense like it didn’t matter, but loosens the rope. There was still a long way to go before they reached the sanctum, the wasteland offered no refreshments. Better off to keep the merchandise fresh before they sell his head away to the right bidder.

 

Junkrat knows the look on their faces, dirt ridden and sun burnt. He forgets about his own thirst by the time the rope around his neck starts cutting into his skin. Once the sun starts to set, the veins under his throat starts throbbing madly. They sit with their cloaks out in the desert, cigarettes lit with bush fire. They study the lean rat with relevant interest, a dark little look in their eyes.

“Wonder what the mauled trash actually found in the graveyard.” The talkative one speaks up. Junkrat pretends to ignore the question, letting his tongue out to lick the dryness in his mouth. He was too busy fighting the dust in his lungs to care about the conversation.

“Does it matter?” the other men say.

It doesn’t, at all actually. The Rat has a better sense of importance in how everything worked in his world. Money will move the big burly buffoons like them while the things inside his head forced the pyramid to topple. He was the living threat to society. So he would play the idiot. For now. Knows nothing, content with being the stupid one.

 

For now.

 

He hears the scrunch of plastic, eyes following the used up bottle tumbling onto the floor. They see his dried lips move, trembling slightly before disappearing behind his canine teeth and reddened tongue.

There is something evil about the way they pour the dirty cold water over his head.

 

“A little too tall.” One of them mutters out aloud. Junkrat finds his voice spluttering through the water soaking his face; _we have ourselves a genius here,_ before the tattooed arm reaches in to gnaw his wet hair and drag it up. It leaves his breath pipes feeling like they were being strangled once the crooked angle sits in to twist at his neck.

 

Can’t be choosers. Hard to find enough skin outside the district, things like that. Oh, he knows that look.

Skinny enough to fuck. They mutter.

 

 

 

 

_Crunch._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Oh how it stings. Like smearing pepper over stitches. Heavens, one tried, nearly got killed by his patient. Or did he really die?

Can’t tell now. Junkrat blinks. His eyelids felt heavy, which meant that he was still alive and fighting, kicking well like a newborn babe. Even with all the holes on his arms, stitched up nice and neat.

Modern medicine, how amazing, and it hurts like fucking hells.

 

“Your affiliations are noteworthy.” The man announces like a cold fish. “Blackwatch had your data before the crisis.”

“Flattered mate, me pleasure.”

 

Nothing follows after their exchange, except the scribbling of pens that sounded strangely annoying. Minor disturbances, Junkrat supposed. They should keep a clock in his cell; it was getting difficult to keep track of the time. The time that he wastes rotting in this place was starting to get to him, he felt tired and dead.

“Your insanity is intriguing.” He speaks again. And this time, Junkrat decides to pay attention. “It acts like a counter serum to null your pain tolerance.”

Jolly long words. Worthy of being ignored, the scrawny Junker closes his eyes again. Being strapped onto a chair with a drill holed body was exhausting work.

 

“Who says I’m bonkers?”

“Tell me this, Jamison.” The voice sounds threateningly nonchalant, and Junkrat is scared – for a split second – of the silence more than the vice.

 

“When was the last time you felt actual pain?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There are exactly twenty six shades of pain and three of them leave the nastiest scars that would last a life time.

The first time Junkrat sees Roadhog, he was hiding under a fuckin’ pile of corpses.

It stank like the hell on Earth, the devil would have regurgitated on such mess under the sinister sun. Funny to know he wasn’t feeling sorry for the spineless fuckers being torn apart. The big one scared the shit out of the little rat squirming under the corpse of a dead whore.

There is something erotic about the way he murdered, and it was frightening. The giant Hog says nothing in his reply when he musters up enough courage to blurt out something, the gun in his hands twitching like a threat.

The meaty finger tapping on his side straps for a split second and Junkrat was sure this was his end. Murdered in cold blood by the emperor of East End Trash Street at the middle of Jesus fucking nowhere.

 

The man just stands there though. Like his batteries ran out. He was like a fucking boulder or a mountain, casting a shadow over his lesser frame.

 

“Gonna kill me too?” Rat muses.

Roadhog doesn’t answer. He sure was talkative, Junkrat concludes.

 

“You’re a waste.” Hog spat. “Of my bullets.”

His voice was all hoarse. Low, deep bass. It sends cold shivers down the other’s spine, as if it resonates with his bones. He felt like a rattle, and it was a damn shame. He can sniff at the adrenaline still pumping inside the sweat of the murderer, the throbbing through the blood on his hands. It was pleasantly uncomfortable.

“Seen your kind. Seen enough.”

“Hundreds is not enough, ripper.” Junkrat reacts immediately. Struggling to get back up on his feet, his thighs burn up at the stinging strain, but his face smiles like a madman. “I’ll show ya somethin’ good buddy. I will.” The jester laughs, nervous in his frenzy. “Somethin’ worth more than you, or me.”

 

There is a moment before Roadhog bursts out laughing.

 

It was eccentric to a point of startling Junkrat. The man cackled like something deprived, his hoarse voice clawing at the scrawny hide like they wanted to bite off his ears. Roadhog looks down at the ridiculous amber eyes, his laughter swallowing the sorry excuse of a human being before him. His laughter chomps it down like a snack on bones.

 

 

The day ends with a sickening sound. Junkrat stares hollowly at the hook slammed into his stomach and lets the first scar bleed.

 

 

 

 

 

_Crunch._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Blood pools too easily. All slimy and curdled, a disgusting heap of filth. His nose is prone to breaking. Fawkes, an old somebody used to say, careful not to dip your nose into somewhere you don’t belong. He was going to lose his mind if he had to sniff more of his own iron.

The stench is sickening. He feels like a doll inside his captivity. Pulled apart and stitched back up again. The orderlies don’t mind when he squirm against the pain, they let him thrash all he liked.

 

He misses Roadhog terribly, but never admits the reason why he was so terrified to be left alone.

And then he grows cold at the thought of his partner dead.

 

It was strangely, a thought that did not occur to him until now. Junkrat sits up in his torn bed, curled up with the white sheets over his head. It’s sickening to see the expression on his own face reflected as a blur on the floor. Reflexively, he hides from it all.

The emotions, the worries, the notion of death. He rocks back and forth, biting down hard on his fingers until they start to tear. He presses hard at the edges, the bones brushing into his hot gums. He feels the pellets of red form the small little beads around the teeth marks.

There is desperation in his breathing as he goes through his memories, trying to find the correct scene, any scene, any image of what he was looking for. Was it? Is it? How’s it? He repeats through his head, cowering in the stifling silence.

 

He remembers the splicing explosion, like a scissor smashing into each other. Clean noise, then bang, Kaboom. Dust and gore, an eyeball flying out of nowhere.

Roadie. Junkrat stops.

 

Roadie. Roadie. Roadie.

 

Can’t be dead. The man is fucking impossible to kill. He knows, he tried, once. Can’t be dead. The Junker retunes. Can’t be dead.

 

Junkrat was running out of breath. Something was drowning underneath the surface, and it was dragging him down with it. It’s cold where they land, there is no air, and Junkrat is asphyxiated to a point where he could feel the darkest part of the ocean on his skin.

 

Can’t be dead.

 

 

 

It was frustrating to not know why the fuck he was crying.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_I don’t know if I hate you, or admire the shit outta’ya, Roddy Buddy._

Junkrat whistles beside the bonfire. He was always whistling by the bonfire like the good little troll he was. Like a child who couldn’t sleep at bedtime. Roadhog always pretended not to listen, eyes drooping underneath his heavy mask. It was strange.

 

To have someone talk to him. To have someone to listen to. He felt like the peeping Tom, stealing small glances at the blonde Junker wiggle his lean fingers by the fire, talking to his inattentive audience. It was mesmerising in a way.

Roadhog blinks twice at the thought. As slow as a turtle would. A cheap hooker once said that mesmerising was a poor expressive word to describe someone you wanted to fuck.

 

Hog grunts, letting the other know he was still awake. It keeps Junkrat babbling on about whatever he was wasting his breath on while Roadhog steals a long hard glance at the Rat. His eyes go down to the light little scar across the Junker’s skinny hips, and spend the rest of the night wondering about the word mesmerising.

Junkrat claws at the scar when Roadhog falls asleep.

To make it blister.

 

 

 

_Crunch._

 

 

 

* * *

 

_What were you doing in the Omnium?_

 

 

Starving rats will start chewing on themselves. The state of everything is completely abysmal when you realise that you were alive inside a giant mess.

Meaninglessly, he counts the days. Counts the days his missing limb stops hurting. Counts the days his burnt scar stops itching. Counts the days he starts forgetting his name. Counts the days he’s gone insane. Counts the days he starts forgetting everything else. Counts the days from when the world ended.

After a while, he gets used to the scorching heat. The abnormal temperature, his wobbling body balanced on one leg and a stick. It’s a glorious weather. For mayhem. And decay. But the wind was too silent. Something is wrong inside his mind.

 

It scared him shitless.

So he cowered for a few days, anxiously laughing off the toxic rain pouring in the sky, sheltering from the radiated storm under the remnants of what used to be a hotel. Scarping a smiley onto a rock reminds him how gloomy his world has become.

He’d rather see the fireworks again. At least they were bright and burning. Fawkes laughs at how silly his ridiculous drawings were. Never was a good drawer, much less a painter. Can’t remember why though.

 

Fawkes? Who was Fawkes? Jamie, do you have any idea who that was?

 

It’s cold under the cement. His burnt fingers scrape hard at the frozen toil, slow enough to break his nails. The air smells stale. Like nothing.

Jamison Fawkes has no idea why breathing the dirt in makes his lungs hurt so much. His nose feels red, all blotchy. His face feels hot. It starts to rain outside and the scenery becomes fucking beautiful. And it’s all his to enjoy.

 

Because he is alone.

 

All alone.

Alone.

Alone.

 

 

 

The loneliness suffocates him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Crunch._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
